New pound coins in 2017

[eurocoin]

Recently it was brought to my attention that the micro lettering on the obverse is different from the one on the reverse. Today the Royal Mint has announced that the obverse will have ONE POUND · ONE POUND on each of the 12 sides and the reverse will have -2017- on each of the 12 sides. The date can be seen 13 times on the coin and the denomination 26 times.

Earlier the Royal Mint had only released images of the new 1 pound coin on which the micro lettering was removed with photoshop.

[Alan71]

So, even though the coins we've seen so far all appear to carry the 2016 date, common sense has prevailed and the circulation coins will actually be dated 2017?

And "nickel-plated" inner, like the 5p and 10p, even though the 50p is still cupro-nickel?  Is cupro-nickel really such a valuable commodity that it can't be used in a high-value coin?

[andyg]

AFAIK all the trial coins sent out over the years remain the property of the mint - even the 1937 threepence coins.

As I wrote upthread - the trials remain property of the mint who are actively stopping sale of any that appear on the market and demanding they are returned to the mint....

[<k>]

So, even though the coins we've seen so far all appear to carry the 2016 date, common sense has prevailed and the circulation coins will actually be dated 2017?

Common sense says you can either date your coins according to the year of production or the year of issue. Both make sense. Some coins even use the year of authorisation.

And "nickel-plated" inner, like the 5p and 10p, even though the 50p is still cupro-nickel?  Is cupro-nickel really such a valuable commodity that it can't be used in a high-value coin?

Producers are required to be efficient. Why make the intrinsic content of a coin far more expensive than it needs to be? Look at how expensive copper-nickel is compared to steel. The more copper and nickel you use, the more expensive the coin. We live in an era of fiat money now. The days when the intrinsic value of a coin had to match its face value are long gone. Next you'll be complaining that the 20 pound note doesn't contain GBP20 worth of material. Would you buy marble for your kitchen tops or something much less expensive that looks just as good as marble? Anyway, the new pound coin is designed to be durable, so there is nothing "cheap" about it in the quality sense.

[eurocoin]

So, even though the coins we've seen so far all appear to carry the 2016 date, common sense has prevailed and the circulation coins will actually be dated 2017?

The Royal Mint will release both 2016 and 2017 dated 1 pound coins in March 2017. So they chose for year of production.

[Alan71]

Common sense says you can either date your coins according to the year of production or the year of issue. Both make sense. Some coins even use the year of authorisation.

Producers are required to be efficient. Why make the intrinsic content of a coin far more expensive than it needs to be? Look at how expensive copper-nickel is compared to steel. The more copper and nickel you use, the more expensive the coin. We live in an era of fiat money now. The days when the intrinsic value of a coin had to match its face value are long gone. Next you'll be complaining that the 20 pound note doesn't contain GBP20 worth of material.

I meant "common sense" in terms of what the Royal Mint has done up until now.  New denominations have always been dated with the year they first entered circulation, regardless of when the coins were actually struck.  The exception was the 1997 £2, but that was intended for November that year until it was put back until June 1998.  Oh well, they've broken with their own tradition.  No big deal for a company that appears to be unrecognisable from the one it was ten or 20 years ago.

And the point I was making on the metal was that the 50p is still being struck in cupro-nickel (as indeed is the 20p, though with a different ratio).  I suppose if cupro-nickel is to be abandoned across the board eventually, it makes sense to do so with a new coin.  Changing to nickel-plated steel later would mean a thicker coin in order to retain the same weight.  That's probably the reason they aren't attempting the 20p and 50p yet - the slot machine conversions have enough to cope with thanks to the new £1.

[Pabitra]

The Royal Mint will release both 2016 and 2017 dated 1 pound coins in March 2017. So they chose for year of production.

The clip under discussion as well as other images are computer generated graphics and show any year.

Here is one which shows 2016 with micro lettering

http://news.coinupdate.com/united-kingdom-treasury-unveils-final-image-for-new-pound-coin/

[andyg]

And the point I was making on the metal was that the 50p is still being struck in cupro-nickel (as indeed is the 20p, though with a different ratio).  I suppose if cupro-nickel is to be abandoned across the board eventually, it makes sense to do so with a new coin.  Changing to nickel-plated steel later would mean a thicker coin in order to retain the same weight.  That's probably the reason they aren't attempting the 20p and 50p yet - the slot machine conversions have enough to cope with thanks to the new £1.

Just wondering if in this case it's more to do with the coins electronic signature than cost?

[augsburger]

Here's what they'll do. Make about 100,000 2016 coins, sneak them into circulation, a year later they'll slap R4RE!!!! L00KKK!!! On them and get everyone crazy for 2016 1 pound coins.

[<k>]

I meant "common sense" in terms of what the Royal Mint has done up until now.  New denominations have always been dated with the year they first entered circulation, regardless of when the coins were actually struck.  The exception was the 1997 £2, but that was intended for November that year until it was put back until June 1998.  Oh well, they've broken with their own tradition.  No big deal for a company that appears to be unrecognisable from the one it was ten or 20 years ago.

Who says we should do things the same way all the time? If we applied that to everything, we'd still be living in caves - but then we probably wouldn't have global warming.

And the point I was making on the metal was that the 50p is still being struck in cupro-nickel (as indeed is the 20p, though with a different ratio).  I suppose if cupro-nickel is to be abandoned across the board eventually, it makes sense to do so with a new coin.  Changing to nickel-plated steel later would mean a thicker coin in order to retain the same weight.  That's probably the reason they aren't attempting the 20p and 50p yet - the slot machine conversions have enough to cope with thanks to the new £1.

Again, there is no real reason to do things one at a time. The New Zealanders reduced three of their coins in size in 2006, and nobody died. Just imagine if the Royal Mint had decided to change the pound, 50p and 20p in one fell swoop. Instead of having machine changes spread across various years, they could all have been done at once to save money. Our modern versatile machines could easily cope with checking an extra three coin types. Whether the Royal Mint and distribution centres could cope with producing and handling three such changes at once is another question, though, given that our population is much larger than New Zealand's - but then we have more people to do the work, of course.

[augsburger]

Also, surely changing the machines all in one go is cheaper than changing the coins over a staggered period, this would mean 3 times more work (if there were three changes).

[eurocoin]

Further information about the super secret () luminescent phosphor particles:

Essentially they are embedding inorganic fluorescent compounds into the metal plating on the coin. When a certain spectrum of light is shone on the coin, these particles absorb that energy and emit a different spectrum. So, depending on the particle they embed, the detector may be as simple as a UV LED and a light sensor at a specific wavelength.

By integrating different ratios of different particles they can differentiate between different coins, for instance.

Further, the patent explains that the plating process generally includes many layers of plating. They may add different mixes at each layer, and thus tell how well-used a coin is, by how many of the upper layers are removed. Aging the coin can be useful to determine when to take it out of circulation before these particles are entirely removed.

The reading mechanism, which flashes light at the tag (the luminscent material is referred to as a tag), then, after the light is off, detects the emissions from the tag. This would not only limit crosstalk between the light source and detector, but with a short window of time directly related to the time the tag takes to convert and emit the energy, tags that don't exactly fit the profile of an authentic tag would be rejected. If you use a material that absorbs and emits at the correct spectrum, it has to have the same conversion time as well.

The luminiscent particles are called iSIS* and the plating on the coin is called aRMour. There will be low speed 'simple iSIS' detectors at point-of-sale (in shops) as well as 'advanced iSIS' high speed detectors in banks.

Source: http://security.stackexchange.com/

*Officially The Royal Mint dropped that name because of the terrorist organization.

[<k>]

Further information about the super secret () luminescent phosphor particles:

No need to worry about revealing secrets:

Spy found dead in a bag had hacked into secret US data



And now I will reveal the secrets behind crop circles:

Crop Circles: Signs from Above or Human Artifacts?

Crop circles 'created using GPS, lasers and microwaves'

How long do you think I will have left to live? 

[eurocoin]

The clip under discussion as well as other images are computer generated graphics and show any year.

Here is one which shows 2016 with micro lettering

http://news.coinupdate.com/united-kingdom-treasury-unveils-final-image-for-new-pound-coin/

I would not have put my message on here if I didn't have confirmation from the Mint that in fact 2016 and 2017-dated circulating 1 pound coins will be issued.

[Alan71]

It can't be long now until the 2017 sets are announced, as in recent years they've been available in December.  Do we think the new £1 will be in it, or will they make us wait until March?  In the very old days (1990, 1992 and 1997), the new 5p, 10p, 50p and £2 were available in sets months before they entered circulation (in the case of the £2, almost 18 months before).  The Royal Mint of today is such a different beast that it's hard to predict.  We already know that the 2016 round pound was the last, so there will be no "old and new" in the same sets as there were in those other years.